[Sugar-devel] an ardent proposal to bring *LOVE* back into Sugar Labs

[Holt]

(1) In-person meetings in between Bostonian 
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board members and Sugar/OLPC 
Local Lab Boston, quasimonthly.  Community is neither a buzzword, nor a 
fantasy, with Sugar Labs' only 4 active board members now living in 
Boston today.  Community is the 132 volunteer members of 
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc_boston who want to particitepate 
in Sugar/OLPC but our promise withers, when accomplished teachers and 
volunteers willing to pull their weight, simply don't -- as too many of 
us are unintentionally hiding behind our IRC koolaid, yep myself guilty 
as charged :)  So it's time to throw a few parties.  And get over a 
couple of our antisocial hangups, at all levels of our organizing.  As 
our 130+ person high-energy http://olpcSF.org/summit this past weekend 
proved far beyond a shadow of a doubt.  As SF's own amazing hackerspace 
(http://noisebridge.net) reminded us all late into the night before.  
Sustainable volunteerism == bringing people together in a physical 
space, even in Boston!  Like others have already done globally here: 
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Local_Labs .  I made this happen last week 
in San Francisco for almost 10 valiant-but-poor-volunteers, by lining 
them up with other more well-off volunteers, using peer2peer donations 
instead of bureaucratic budget molasses.  Next year we can do this for 
20 volunteers instead of 10, if we bring ourselves together.  Meantime: 
I, Walter, Bernie and CJB (etc) can do our Boston and Global community a 
gigantic favor if we Get Out More right here at home :)  Learning (i.e. 
healthy) communities live or die based on the Rhythm their members 
create -- physical bonds feed online bonds and vice versa.  Let us begin 
now.  Progress beckons: Walter, Bernie & I will meet all together Thurs 
(tomorrow) for the first time in about a year, to discuss our 
breakthrough community catapult in SF, even before SF's Mayor issued his 
proclamation: 
http://blog.laptop.org/2010/10/22/october-23-is-olpc-day-in-sf/

(2) Democracy does NOT grow on trees, or in the back of stale legalistic 
texts.  It is the worst form of governance, if we believe Churchill, and 
accordingly I and Sugar Labs' Oversight Board have been negligent in not 
getting folks fired up about the current election process, failing to 
bringing strong awareness around precise key election dates, even 
understanding it ourselves!  I personally consider both to be 
constitutional duty: the cleanest elections happen when we enable 
get-out-the-vote mobilizations of all kind, enabling expression and 
reflection AKA learning.  Disturbing evidence I've uncovered in the past 
24hrs is that board members themselves I've spoken to privately remain 
confused about nomination/election dates, confused about duration of 
terms, confused about lame duck/impeachment/replacement/re-invitation 
procedures for the several absentee board members already gone.  Pity 
our rank+file volunteer just trying to get some work done, or get fired 
up about our so-sweet possibilities!  Now drowning in this 
unadvertised/undecided election machinery-- No more!  I suggest we start 
with Informed Consent, meaning strong advance awareness of all deadlines 
and voting times -- that we hopefully all together agree to publicize 
very directly off:

     http://google.com/search?q=sugar+labs+election

(3) One specific proposal around strengthening awareness of Sugar Labs' 
election clearly, widely and far more passionately, with all dates 
clearly layed out, right off the uniquely memorable page above -- was 
advanced by Luke Faraone (administering the election) earlier this 
evening.  Walter Bender says he would agree to support Luke's proposal 
to extend registration (welcoming quality candidates & eligible voters 
both) until something like Nov 10th 23:59 EST, if the election itself 
was delayed until approximately Nov 14-27, IF our broad community and 
board agrees this will all deepen our Participative process, strengthen 
who we are, illustrate our shared sacrifice -- and most importantly: 
waken our family and friends to our cause.  Yes, I'm paraphrasing, 
Walter please speak for yourself :)   In any case, for me 
clearness-in-democracy is non-negotiable, as is our blessed 
responsibility to stay young, Meaningfully open (Lovable too please!) 
while at last growing up as a 2008-2012 organization, as this election 
will now decide.  I support Luke's above thoughtful proposal and hope 
others will too, enhancing it ideally if you can, but most important all 
speaking our consciences towards deciding quickly and carefully, however 
we proceed.

(4) First kill all the lawyers (but please Shakespeare DO read our "SFC 
by-laws" at 
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/SFC-SugarLabs_Agreement and 
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Members/List carefully before 
the light goes out :)  And if a board meeting is needed to finalize any 
electoral learning learning consensus(es) emerging above, or 
similar/otherwise, please Walter/CJB schedule this very quickly before I 
go offline most of Sat Oct 30 to Sun Nov 14 to volunteer building 
http://blueTarpSchool.blogspot.com in Haiti.

(5) I Love Haiti, but can't promise Sugar/OLPC/Realness/FabLab/Whatever 
Local Lab Port-au-Prince just yet on this trip -- but I *will* do what I 
can to convince my traveling companion (Tim Falconer, 
http://waveplace.com/news/blog ) rest you assured!!

(6) Fall in Love again, it won't hurt I promise... it might even 
hopefully spur you to add your name here: 
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board/2010-2011-candidates